Dynamic IP Addresses: Error Messages

Overview

This article provides some understanding around potential "Error Messages" that may occur while using a Dynamic IP in conjunction with OpenDNS.

Solution

ERROR

Explanation / Fix

Dashboard Login Failure

If you experience problems when attempting to log in to the OpenDNS Dashboard, verify that you are accepting cookies from OpenDNS. If cookies are enabled and problems persist, try clearing the cache and the cookies of your Internet browser and retry.

SERVFAIL

The SERVFAIL error indicates that the nameserver of the requested domain is experiencing an internal error. OpenDNS servers are able to reach the domain but are unable to communicate with the specific nameserver. This can be the result of a few conditions such as unusually high traffic on that particular server. The only solution is to keep trying or try again later.

Network Already Exists / IP Address Taken by Another User /!Yours

These 3 errors are related to networks that use dynamic IP addresses, which have been or are currently registered with OpenDNS by another account holder.

The Network Already Exists error occurs when the IP address of your network was, at one time, previously registered with OpenDNS by a different account holder. Because many networks use dynamic IP addresses, the IP address is now assigned to your network, but still linked to the original OpenDNS account holder.

The Your IP Address Taken or !Yours errors usually occur when updating your network IP address with the OpenDNS client-side IP updater. The conflict arises when the IP address being updated falls into one of the following two scenarios:

Actual address is registered to another OpenDNS account holder.

The IP address falls in the range of a larger netblock, which is registered with another OpenDNS account holder.

When these network conflicts occurs, not all OpenDNS features can be fully configured on your network, though you will still be using OpenDNS servers and benefiting from our fast, secure and reliable Internet experience.

To resolve this issue, please contact uswith details. Be sure and include the following:

The error message

Your full name

The email address used to create the account

Your current IP address, found at the top of the OpenDNS home page

DNS and HTTP IP Address Mismatch (Content Filtering Not Working)

You may receive this error if you have just configured OpenDNS and are testing your configuration at our Welcome to OpenDNS test page. Typically, this issue will rectify itself within 3-5 minutes as the OpenDNS network registers your new network.

If it appears that your Web content filtering settings are no longer being applied to your network, and you have flushed DNS cache, this error is likely the result of an IP address conflict. The error is:

This issue is usually caused by the way your ISP handles DNS traffic, and transparent proxies that create different "egress" IPs for DNS and HTTP traffic. OpenDNS is unable to help with speific ISP related troubleshooting, but we recommend getting in touch with them and asking whether you are behind a transparent proxy.

To see if your DNS traffic IP address is indeed different from your web traffic IP address, try the following:

To find your DNS IP address, use the command line and run "nslookup myip.opendns.com"

Typically these should be the same but if you're receiving this error, they would be different.

It is your DNS IP address which must be registered at https://dashboard.opendns.com/settings/ to make the additional features of OpenDNS work (blocking by category, blocking or whitelisting individually, stats and logs).

Alternatively, you can call up your ISP to find out why they route your DNS traffic differently from the rest of your traffic, and if there's a possibility to opt out from this different DNS traffic routing.

OpenDNS Configuration Test Yields: "Oops!" Message

If you have tested your OpenDNS configuration and received the Oops! message, you may actually have OpenDNS configured correctly but be experiencing a problem related to how your ISP provisions your Internet connection.

First, check with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to determine whether they allow third-party DNS services. If they do, the next most likely explanation for failing the OpenDNS configuration tests is that your ISP uses a proxy server.

If your ISP uses proxy servers, you will not be able to take advantage of our Web-based features, but you will still benefit from a fast, secure and reliable Internet navigation experience.

If the verification results from below indicate you are using different DNS servers and you are confident that you have followed the OpenDNS configuration instructions, please contact your ISP to verify whether they allow third-party DNS.

In some cases, a work-around has been found successful by configuring both the router/modem and all computers on the network to use OpenDNS servers. For more information about how to configure OpenDNS on a computer, follow this link.